THE DAILY IOWAN
DAILYIOWAN.COM THURSDAY, JUNE 30, 2016
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THE DAILY IOWAN
DAILYIOWAN.COM THURSDAY, JUNE 30, 2016
THE DAILY IOWAN
DAILYIOWAN.COM THURSDAY, JUNE 30, 2016
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BERKMAN CONTINUED FROM 1B ter he moved to New York in 1985. After diving into the local scene — an environment populated with some of the most talented jazz musicians of the age — Berkman and his cohorts began to make a name for themselves. “There are great musicians everywhere in the world. I’m often in Japan or Europe, and there are great players that I hear
THE DAILY IOWAN and play with,” he said. “However, there is a density of great players in New York that is like nowhere else I’ve been to. Also there’s a connection to the jazz tradition that is very special. It’s why I’ve lived there for over 30 years.” As his career has progressed, Berkman has started to become more of a bandleader than a player, and he has formed a trio, a quartet, a quintet, and a sextet. “I love all of it,” he said. “It’s all different
DAILYIOWAN.COM THURSDAY, JUNE 30, 2016
and it brings out different responses.” In these e n s e m bles, Berkman has been able to headline festivals all t h r o u g h Berkman the world, composer & pianist including Brazil, Britain, and Spain. Outside of playing jazz, Berkman has also written three books about the genre, published by
Sher Music Co. The Jazz Musician’s Guide to Creative Practicing (2007), The Jazz Singer’s Guidebook (2009), and The Jazz Harmony Book (2013) are all instructional texts created in hopes of teaching the next generation of jazz musicians. When Berkman is not writing or performing in one of his various ensembles, he spends his time gathering the materials to record new music. Throughout his lengthy career, he has recorded and released nine al-
bums, some of which have landed on the Album of the Year list of the New York Times, Village Voice, Downbeat, and others. “I’m always working on new music, so usually it’s more of a question of gathering material and arranging it for the given project,” Berkman said. “However, one of the tunes on the recording, ‘Strange Attractions and then Birds,’ was written the day before we recorded.” Having been in the business for the greater part of his life Berkman
said there are no plans to stop anytime soon. His love of the music has taken him all over the world and continues to take him to new places.
MUSIC
David Berkman Sextet When: 8 p.m. July 3 Where: Jazz Festival Main Stage Cost: Free
Writing as lingua franca for the human experience By CLAIRE DIETZ claire-dietz@uiowa.edu
Students from abroad, especially Russia and the Middle East, have a unique opportunity to spend two weeks in Iowa City, where they will have the chance to write and grow as individuals. In conjunction with the International Writing Program, Prairie Lights, 15 S. Dubuque St., will host a reading at 7 p.m. today by writers Dora Malech of the U.S., Karim Alrawi of Egypt, and Alisa Ganieva of Russia. The three will also be instructors for the Between the Lines program, which brings highschool-age students from around the world to Iowa City for two weeks. Ganieva, who hails from Dagestan, a Russian republic on the Caspian Sea that borders the nations of Georgia and Azerbaijan, recalls
her first time visiting the Midwest during her stay at the International Writing Program in 2012. “It was the first time for me to be in Midwest America, to see the farms, the fields, the Amish,” she said. “I feel quite at home in Iowa City. Last year, I was invited as an instructor for Between the Lines; I was really surprised to see the same people on the streets, the same restaurants and cafés. I really felt nostalgic about it.” Ganieva, the author of The Mountain and the Wall and The Bride and the Bridegroom, calls the development of each pupil “interesting and attractive.” She said the two weeks in Iowa City would change them. “They'll come here with their own baggage of experience or absence of experience,” she said. “Coming into touch with
people who are in the start of their life and careers, and who knows, maybe they won’t become writers, but nevertheless it is very useful for them just to know the world.
For Malech, the author of Say So and Shore Ordered Ocean, the program “really facilitates cross-cultural understanding and connections.” “[The] groups coming together with a kind of
Malech
Ganieva
Alrawi
United States
Russia
Egypt
“I think truly brilliant pieces of literature always suggest different perspectives and different ways to interpret situations. I think at the end of these two weeks, most of them will come to this conclusion and will start thinking this way.”
common ground that all of the high-school students are really interested in creative writing,” she said. “Literature is a way to promote empathy and an understanding, connection with people.” The evening’s final reading will come from
Alrawi, the author of Book of Sands, and a former writing instructor at the American University in Cairo. The novel, which won the HarperCollins/UBC Best New Fiction Prize, tells the story of a father and daughter who take to the road to escape persecution during the Arab Spring. Since Alrawi began working on Sands, the book has undergone monumental changes, including a total rewriting of the plot. When he first set off to write the book, it was set in Egypt and was about Alrawi’s time teaching there. “One of the observations I had when I was there was the uneven social development of the country, not just social but wealth as well,” he said. “You would be in a remote village with no road, no running
water, barely any electricity, people living almost 200-300 years ago, but everyone has cellphones. That contrast between a society with very modern technology and very medieval ways of life and thinking interested me.” However, once the Arab Spring began, Alrawi said he realized he needed to write a new book. “When the Arab Uprising began, I realized everything was changing,” he said. “[So] I went to Egpyt, spent 16 of the 18 days of the uprising there.”
WORDS
Dora Malech, Karim Alrawi, and Alisa Ganieva When: 7 p.m. today Where: Prairie Lights, 15 S. Dubuque Cost: Free